Monday, February 13, 2006

'The Guy Has Some Touch Issues'

Last night, I caught the replay of the Japan v USA game on (UK) Channel 5. The difference between this and their usual mediocre football coverage was that this was just a rebroadcast of the American ESPN2 coverage, complete with odd ad-breaks midway through the first half and, of course, American commentators who were - as you might expect - quite a culture shock.All American commentators for all sports talk too much and distract from the match and they all do that irritating 'double act' thing, so that wasn't much of a surprise. Annoying, but not surprising.But the terminology used was odd to say the least. When Japan went to 4-4-2, they described it as a '4-4-2 alignment' rather than formation and several times when a player crossed the ball, they referred to 'Wolff [or whoever] has surfed the ball into a dangerous area'. Surfed ? Oh, please.The pick of the bunch : "This guy has some touch issues" used to describe a Japanese player with a poor first touch. "Touch issues" ?!?!? That really is priceless.

You're right, Oscar, it was 'served' not 'surfed'. I was watching it at 2 am so my memory is a little fuzzy.

And yeah, I know that it was aimed at an American audience...that was what interested me about the commentary. I do find the constant talking back and forth between commentators extremely annoying though. Shut up and let me watch the damn match :)